


skyfall

by Hugabug



Series: velodrome [1]
Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, James Bond AU, Light Angst, M/M, Orphans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hugabug/pseuds/Hugabug
Summary: Or in which building family is so much more difficult when you're expendable. Doesn't mean Eugene isn't going to try.





	skyfall

“Higher ups don’t like you banging your handler.”

Eugene tips the rest of his whiskey down his throat, not even flinching from the burn that spreads all the way across his chest. Next to him, his best friend, and fellow double-0 agent, sighs.

“Fulmer said.” Quinta tells him, sipping from her own glass. Her lipstick leaves a dark stain on the rim of the crystal, mauve like dried blood. “You know how they are.”

“Orphans make the best agents.” Eugene echoes, words from the mouth of a dead boss, said so long ago. “I’m not an orphan, Q.”

Quinta chuckles, a quick thing that is lost in the depths of her alcohol. “You act like one.”

Eugene watches as she downs her gin and tonic, wonders whether its the burn of alcohol or the memories it hopes to eradicate that makes her grimace in pain. He doesn’t continue that thought. It’ll only bring back demons neither of them have the energy to face.

“I like him.” he tells her, instead. “He makes me feel wanted.”

“I’m happy he does.” Quinta smiles at him, soft and understanding. Very rare. “You always worked better when you had more to lose.”

Eugene quirks an eyebrow. “Is that suppose to be a compliment?”

“Yup,” she laughs, making the “p” pop, sharp to his ears. “Buy me a drink?”

“Anything for you.”

Eugene lifts a hand to flag down the bar tender from the other side of the counter, and as the burly man nods in acknowledgement, Eugene feels Quinta’s eyes on him, burning into the back of his head. When he turns back to her, she has her mouth pursed, a deep, deep troubled expression lining her face.

“He’s an orphan, Eugene.” she says, after awhile, quiet. “He’s just how they like ‘em. Remember that.”

Eugene frowns. “You’re an orphan.”

“And I left you to rot– Malta. Brazil. Ring any bells?”

He looks into her eyes, searching for regret. But there isn’t any, not that he could see. Either she knows how to hide it well, or there really is none at all. Eugene wants to believe the former, but in their line of work, the latter is more plausible– they have no room for attachments. If given the choice, if it meant saving millions, Quinta would shoot him in the head. And she wouldn’t even blink an eye. They both know, that as a double-0, you are everyone’s last priority.

It’s a lonely existence. To say it doesn’t bother him would be a huge lie.

“Quartermasters are hard people– they have to be. They’re the last voices you’ll ever hear. They solve the problems, and if they can’t, they make the choice. They cut you off, and they leave you behind to die.” Quinta shrugs. “I hope you know: he will never choose you.”

Eugene’s lips thin. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

She smiles at him, sadly. “Least I can do.”

The bar tender chooses that moment to interrupt, and for the rest of the night, they say no more.

* * *

“I told you to bring it back in one piece, not in pieces.”

Before Eugene can protest, Zach is fighting off a smile and a snort of laughter, delighted by his own joke despite the ruin that is Eugene’s custom made GPS tracker lying on the table that separates them. The bulbs in the Quartermaster lab cast a glow that is harsh to the eyes and not flattering at all, but when Zach finally laughs, being unable to hold it in any longer, Eugene thinks that in this light, he is the most beautiful thing he has ever had the privilege to see.

“Ah, that always gets me.” Zach giggles, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I try it out on everyone. Double-0 five likes it.”

“Andrew loves puns.” Eugene says, smiling because he couldn’t help it. “Of course he’d like it.”

Zach grins. “His handler says the same thing.”

They lapse into silence, Zach bustling around to try and revive the abused GPS in order to get the coordinates the higher ups had asked for. Eugene watches him work, committing the crease of his forehead, the slight twinkle in his blue eyes, and the tip of his pink tongue sticking out over his lower lip to memory. He likes to bring these little details with him, no matter where he goes. It helps him, to remember them. It helps him sleep.

“Rude.”

Eugene blinks, surprised. “Sorry?”

“Staring, double-0 seven.” Zach chuckles, finally looking up and shooting Eugene one of his toothy smiles. Eugene commits that to memory, too. Just in case. “It’s rude. What’re you looking at?”

Eugene smirks. “More like ogling.” he says, leaning over the table to get as close to Zach as possible. “You’re hot when you’re doing your thing.”

In the earlier stages of their relationship, Zach would’ve blushed and deflected, stirring the conversation toward something mundane, like the weather, or perhaps the latest office gossip. Now, however, Zach simply rolls his eyes and grins, wide, with only a little bit of delicate pink dusting the apples of his cheeks. Eugene thinks it’s unfair. No one should have the power to make his chest skip a beat just like that.

“And you’re distracting.” Zach retorts, no heat whatsoever behind his words. “I would’ve been finished in an hour if it weren’t for you.”

“It’s only been an hour and a half.”

“Exactly.”

Eugene tries to smirk in triumph, desperately schooling his face into this quietly smug look he makes especially for when he gets the upper hand, but Zach does things to his face as well as the rest of him. A smile blooms in its stead, the most geniune one he’s let out in days, and to see Zach smile back leaves him giddy, drunk on a feeling he’s not allowed to name.

Between them, the GPS pings to life.

“There we go.” Zach says, picking it up and plugging it into his laptop. The device whirrs to life and around them, 20 feet of mainframe does as well. Eugene watches Zach do what he does best, trailing his eyes after hands that adjust knobs and fingers tapping away at keyboards. “Give me five and you can bring this to the execs.”

Eugene swallows. “Fun.”

“Oh, c'mon, they aren’t that bad.”

“You only say that because you don’t need to deal with them.” Eugene takes a deep breath, reaching over the table to take a lone screwdriver. He pockets it, just like he always does, and tries to hide fidgety fingers along side them. “Can I… ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“My… I got a call the other day.” Eugene says, choosing his next words carefully. “From France.”

“Oh?” Zach still hasn’t turned back to him, gaze on the screen of code before him, and their lack of eye contact leaves Eugene relieved.

He takes another deep breath. “My sister.”

Zach’s fingers still on the keyboard. A pause. Then, a split second later the clacking comes back, unfazed. “Oh.”

Eugene feels a chill shoot down his spine. “She wanted to see me over Christmas. We haven’t seen each other since mom died. Can you–”

He stops himself before he can say the rest ( _“–come with me? I don’t want to see her on my own.”_ ), but the words are palpable.

The GPS pings one more time, before going completely silent.

“Eugene,” Zach breathes, removing his glasses and rubbing at his eyes the way he does when the fatigue finally gets to him. “I–  _Eugene._ ”

( _“He will never choose you.”_ )

“You don’t have to go.” Eugene says, flatly. He recoils just a bit, trying his best to claw at the walls that are returning, fighting every instinct he has to lash out or run away. His job makes him lonely, his life style makes him expendable, but Zach… he won’t do anything to lose Zach. “It’s stupid. It’s fine. Never mind. I just wanted you to know–”

“Stop.”

Eugene’s mouth clicks shut, and Zach puts his glasses on.

He doesn’t speak immediately, but he does make eye contact, blue eyes swirling with a number of emotions barely held together. Sometimes, Eugene wonders how Zach landed this job, how he got so good at seeing agents ( _friends_ ) die and hundreds of innocents get shot as collateral damage every other day. How he got so good at watching a person’s last moments, hearing so many last words, but managing to have a smile that could rival sunshine. There are days when Eugene wants to ask, slow mornings curled up in blankets, content with just laying there and breathing each other in, basking in the warmth of another human being after so long. But where Zach’s eyes speak, his mouth stays shut, walls coming up until he’s somewhere Eugene can’t reach. He’s an orphan. They all are– or should be. Eugene knows nothing about his past or about being untethered, alone in the world. That baggage, he does not understand, and his inability to puts a rift between them that Eugene is afraid he can never cross.

So he offers himself up instead, flayed open, ready to be picked apart and carefully reassembled. Zach’s demons needn’t come play when he’s loving Eugene back together. It’s a sacrifice– a selfish one. Zach will stay, and Eugene can fool himself into thinking that, when the time comes, Zach will choose him, too.

Silence persists, and in it they do nothing but stare at each other. It isn’t a standoff, but Eugene wills himself to keep his gaze, anyway, bearing his heart like a bleeding, beating badge. Zach’s eyes search his, looking for something, Eugene isn’t sure what, and this lasts for a few minutes, thoughts flying in all directions– until, finally, Zach turns away.

He unplugs the GPS from its cord and chucks it, unceremoniously, into the trash. The mainframe dies down, the screen goes black, and once everything seems to have peacefully turned off, Zach takes out what looks like a signal blocker and presses the big, red button.

“This room has eyes and ears.” he explains, turning to Eugene with a slight grimace. “We have five minutes.”

“You don’t have to go.”

“No.” Zach shakes his head. Then shrugs. “But I will.”

Eugene feels all of him freeze, surprise rendering him speechless. Zach smiles at him, albeit it is sad and slightly strained. It doesn’t suit him.

Eugene takes a step forward. “Zach–”

“My parents are buried in New York.”

The words come out cracked, painful even to Eugene’s ears. Zach’s face looks a split second away from crumbling altogether, but his eyes burn with a determination to pull through. Eugene lets him gather his own thoughts.

After a moment, Zach makes a strangled sound.

“I haven’t visited them since I was sixteen.” He says, wringing his wrists with his hands. “I try not to, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about them, and I haven’t– I couldn’t–”

His words catch in his throat, and Eugene walks around the table to gather Zach to his chest.

The smaller man presses his forehead to Eugene’s shoulder. “I want to do what you do,” he rasps, quiet. A whisper. “I want to tell you everything.”

“I want to hear it.” Eugene presses a kiss to his temple. “All of it.”

Zach laughs, bitter and tinged with so much regret, it sounds out of place. Nevertheless, he pulls Eugene closer, fingers digging into the meat of his back, walls nowhere to be seen. They stand like that, even after their five minutes are up, and Eugene knows that they’ll have to talk about this, sit down and reach into places within themselves they would rather lock away.

But for now, they stay like this, and Eugene finds comfort in the knowledge that maybe he doesn’t need to fool himself any longer.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](en-sam-malas.tumblr.com)   
>  [tumblr ver.](http://en-sam-malas.tumblr.com/post/168818710160/i-took-a-little-break-from-writing-the-shyan)


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